tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14839442005935618042024-03-06T00:32:27.579-05:00Fixing PsychologyA blog about problems in the field of psychology and attempts to fix them. Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.comBlogger149125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-23528950481367518352022-01-02T23:52:00.001-05:002022-01-02T23:52:06.977-05:00Abduction and the myth of introspectionThe Book: Abduction in Cognition and Action, Edited by John R. Shook and Sami PaavolaThe Article: Abductive Inference, Self-Knowledge, and the Myth of Introspection, by Eric Phillip Charles and Nicholas S. ThompsonFirst question from most people: What the heck is abduction? There are many answers to that question. My preferred (at the moment): Abduction is that it's that thingEric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-91241196394343323522021-10-29T22:40:00.002-04:002021-10-29T22:42:38.112-04:00Deep thoughts: P Zombie Couches I wrote several years ago about the classic "Stomach in a Jar" problem that has vexed philosophers for decades. I write today about the equally complex Philosophical Zombie Couch problem, which has fascinated philosophers since Keith Campbell and Robert Kirk introduced the idea in the early 1970s, and David Chalmers popularized it in the mid 1990s. Many of you will not be familiar with the Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-105783458987767232021-03-21T08:00:00.005-04:002021-09-03T20:36:56.250-04:00Veridical Perception (In Verse) The APA Journal History of Psychology started a News an Notes section a few years ago, including a "Poetry Corner." Most contributions are archival finds of poems by historically-eminent psychologists, but they also invited poems about the history of psychology. So far as I know, I am the only person to take them up on the latter offer. This was my first contribution:Veridical Perception
Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-20608007367423089912021-03-01T23:06:00.008-05:002021-03-02T09:50:12.114-05:00Defining key terms in Ecological PsychologyAndrew Wilson and I had a tiff on twitter about whether "Affordances" are by-definition "perceivable". Well... backing up... it was a tiff about whether it is fair for a researcher to start talking about something as an example of an affordance, when they have not bothering to demonstrate that the thing in question is perceived. This actually has deep implications for all the key terms in Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-50156050381377842912020-01-10T08:10:00.001-05:002020-01-10T08:11:55.499-05:00The Ecological Revolution: The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, 50 Years LaterIn 1997, the journal Ecological Psychology published two issues in tribute to James Gibson's The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, which was published in 1966. I am creating this page as a landing pad for my posts regarding the articles in those issues. I will also add links, as I find them, to other places on the internet where these issues are discussed (suggestions in the comments are Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-56985262789311113472019-10-06T22:38:00.002-04:002021-03-07T13:52:23.210-05:00How we got to the muddle of "The Hard Problem" in psychology
Once upon a time we knew almost nothing about how vision worked,
then, at just about the same time, all of the following happened:
Artists figured out perspectival drawing, and people went nuts
over it.
It was discovered that they eye of a bull could act like a
“camera obscura.” Camera obscuras were small dark rooms in the middle of a
garden, built so that they cast an inverted view of the Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-6775592978943757762018-06-01T07:00:00.000-04:002018-06-01T07:00:36.063-04:00Chicago APA Convention 2019 - Society for the History of PsychologyFYI: Cathy Faye, President-Elect of the Society for the History of Psychology (American Psychological Association Division 26), asked a while ago if I would be program chair for the 2019 APA convention in Chicago. I foolishly agreed pretty readily! Three quick things:
1) If you or someone you know might be interested in being the co-chair, with me shouldering most of the work, please give me a Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-29365274553811063272018-04-08T16:08:00.000-04:002018-04-08T16:16:48.218-04:00Representation, Bee Dances, and Daniel Hutto
Dan Hutto, who does great philosophy of psychology work, recently gave an ENSO seminar titled Beyond Content: Explications, Motivations and Implications.
This is the ENactive Seminars Online (ENSO), put together by Merek McGann and Mathew Egbert. Dan gives a solid overview of the players working today on whether cognition necessarily entails representation - and what on earth Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-35733506860052244332017-12-16T15:52:00.001-05:002017-12-16T21:18:32.224-05:00Perceiving sociocultural phenomena<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-55011315053501246222017-12-06T02:24:00.000-05:002017-12-06T02:24:52.291-05:0050 Years of Research into Haptic PerceptionGibson’s 1966 book The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems recently turned 50. Two issues of
the journal Ecological Psychology
commemorated that event (here, and here). This is the third in a series of posts reviewing those
contributions. It covers Carello & Turvey's Useful Dimensions of Haptic Perception: 50 Years After The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems.
Haptic perceptionEric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-51481833890693427492017-11-22T15:23:00.001-05:002017-11-22T15:24:24.602-05:00Modularity and the study of visual perception - Marr and GibsonGibson’s 1966 book The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems recently turned 50. Two issues of
the journal Ecological Psychology
commemorated that event (here, and here). This is the second in a series of posts reviewing those
contributions.
Vision research was impacted tremendously by the short career of David Marr. Marr was tremendously impacted by James J. Gibson, though mostly by Gibson's Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-76178583643176906832017-11-14T22:06:00.002-05:002017-11-14T22:06:44.217-05:00The senses re-considered as perceptual systems - Introduction to the Special Isuses<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-35305119831619027332017-11-07T23:19:00.001-05:002017-11-11T22:00:06.255-05:00E.C. Tolman's Biography, and the end of PsychCritquesI recently completed what will be my last review for PsycCritiques, the online journal that succeeded the print Contemporary Psychology, which itself ran from 1956-2004 (founded by Edwin Boring). The book was a good one:
Purpose and Cognition: Edward Tolman and the Transformation of AmericanPsychology
By David W. Carroll
I
say it will be my last review, because over the summer I Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-36310648247559524432017-11-01T20:03:00.000-04:002017-11-01T22:08:00.761-04:00Restarting.... AgainThere has been another prolonged absence on this blog, about 5 months this time. While a shame, at least that time has been productive. I completed a few projects and began a few more. It is time to restart things here.... again.
Later this week, I will start with a review of the recently published biography of E.C. Tolman.
After that, I will start reviewing articles from this year's Special Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-19119682562534929012017-06-21T16:34:00.001-04:002020-01-10T07:54:23.759-05:00Ecological and Social Psychology - Is it Holt or Nothing?!?My initial article connecting Holt and Ecological Psychology (see discussion here) generated two comments. The comments covered many points, but the most consistent thread was that Ecological Psychology had studied social behavior and had not needed to turn to Holt to do so. The journal (Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, IPBS) invited me to respond. Taking the strongest tact I Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-49525567120116449462017-05-22T08:39:00.003-04:002017-05-22T08:39:25.157-04:00Ecological and Social Psychology - Starting to look backI have a paper coming out in the next issue of Ecological Psychology. It is an article written for the 50th anniversary of Gibson's The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. The article lays out the foundation of Ecological Psychology, as I see it, the core insights of the field connected to Gibson's prescient insight regarding what an evolutionary theory of perception must look like. This Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-85397201731923024392017-05-01T10:00:00.000-04:002017-05-02T09:16:58.855-04:00Bead Theory and the Problem of Consciousness - ContinuedContinuing to unravel the problem of contrasting consciousness and behavior discussed in the prior post, Holt (1915). The influence on people like J.J. Gibson and Skinner continues to be evident, in the search for functional relations. This also connects to my assertion that the goal of William James's later work - and hence Holt's work - was to try to layout the foundational Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-32808546123334952202017-04-27T15:40:00.002-04:002017-05-08T08:29:49.609-04:00Bead Theory and the Problem of Consciousness - Highlights for Holt's writing
E.B. Holt 1915 book continues to be central to my scholarship. Appended to the book are two articles Holt had published the prior year, on "Response and Cognition." There is much overlap between the works, but in a few places I think the articles add significantly. One is in discussion of explanations that Holt disparagingly calls "Bead Theories", characterized by description of a series of Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-31999708151924257722017-04-18T13:08:00.000-04:002017-04-18T13:08:15.435-04:00The problem with alternatives to cognitive psychologyIn the last post, I pointed out the problem with cognitive psychology: While often hopelessly ambiguous, it creates a practical and useful sense of solidity, making it easy to use for normal professional activities. But what about alternative approaches?
Alas, the situation is almost the complete opposite for most attempts to get “beyond cognitivism”: They are not, or at least do not Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-58054245522923004482017-04-03T20:29:00.001-04:002017-04-03T20:30:10.649-04:00The Probelm with Cognitive PsychologyMartin Dege and I shared an office for a year at Clark University. He was a grad student studying cultural psychology, I a post doc studying parent-infant interaction from an evolutionary and ecological perspective. Our work was not very similar, but we got along well, including collaborating on a paper. It was, technically, a comment on a target article, but we did our best to make it stand Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-33703596228077677672016-11-01T16:04:00.000-04:002016-11-01T16:04:22.690-04:00Radical Empiricism and treating experiences as they are
A few years ago, the "Kitchen Group" at Clark University (now based at Aalborg University in Denmark) put together a book on "Recursivity" in psychology, edited by Zach Beckstead (who recently got hired on at BYU Hawaii, congrats!). I contributed a chapter on William James's Radical Empiricism, including his confounding notion of "pure experience". In it, I illustrate how Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-79808712530696036482016-09-07T21:29:00.002-04:002016-09-16T14:33:30.819-04:00Rebirth... Book Club... Evolution and Ecological PsychologyIt has been a tumultuous few years, with inconsistent ability to focus on my academic work, and a corresponding inability to focus on my blog posts. However, I am getting my feet back underneath me in various ways: A better job, a better area, a nascent DC Area Metaphysical Club, and other things I will update on later. As such it seems time to also get back on track here. So, starting later thisEric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-81783319176443215462016-03-01T14:44:00.000-05:002016-03-01T14:46:37.329-05:00The Railway Man - Highlights of Holt's writing
I'm reviewing materials in preparation for an ENSO (Enactive Seminars Online) session on 3/3/16. This is one of the most important sections of The Freudian Wish (Holt, 1915). Something well worth meditating upon:
Let us consider, then, the higher forms of behavior, in human
beings, and the question of consciousness and thought.
If one sees a man enter a railway station, purchase a ticket,
Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-13427306901577324302016-02-01T02:00:00.003-05:002016-02-01T02:00:48.119-05:00Why Experiment?... Why Science at All?
A lot of people wonder what the big deal is about experiments. Why do people care if, say, some particular dietary supplement has been supported by randomized experiments or not? If taking two St. John's wort pills a day helps me out, and my friends say it helps them, why should anyone care what some guy in a lab coat thinks? To answer that question, we need to start with Eric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483944200593561804.post-47915763037456792402015-11-18T19:55:00.000-05:002015-11-18T20:06:35.828-05:00Political correctness IS curtailing free speech, and that's just fine!There is much talk about political correctness on college campus. This is including, but not limited to, discussion about Halloween costumes, trigger warnings, safe spaces, and issues involving feminism and race relations. I am not going to write here about my opinions regarding political correctness, or trigger warnings, or any of those issues. Instead I am going to focus on a very weird dynamicEric Charleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17412168482569793996noreply@blogger.com0